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Moto 360 review

theverge.com

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Re: Moto 360 review

#41

Post by blowski »

gambiting wrote: post #37
blowski wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In which case, could you hibernate the CPU as well as the screen, but still leave the time on display?

but then you are defeating the purpose of wearing a smartwatch, which I believe is to keep receiving notifications for calls, emails, messages and so on. If you only wake up the CPU every minute to check then it's far too slow to be useful.

Forgive me for being a bit out of touch.

Is the idea of a smartwatch to be your main phone, small enough to strap to your wrist? I imagined that it was more like a really good watch - primarily there to tell the time, but allowing you to use it as a phone when that would otherwise be inconvenient.

I played around with a prototype of an Android watch, and it just seemed too small to be useful. It seems like a remote control to a smartphone would be more useful - something that vibrated when I get a notification, and could send commands to Siri.

Re: Moto 360 review

#42

Post by igravious »

paulojreis wrote: post #38
igravious wrote: post #35

I don't care. I am never wearing a watch again. The only stuff I want on me are clothes and jewellery. Clothes to keep the cold and wet and dirt off; jewellery as non-functional art pieces that speak to me in some way and say something about myself to others. I don't want to have any piece of electronic technology tethered to any part of my body unless one day (God forbid) I'm forced to wear a pace-maker. I was never…

Aren't watches (also) amazing pieces of jewellery?

I see what you're saying and I'm not trying to come across like some kind of luddite (I likes me tech I tells ya) but I only want the jewellery I have on me to have aesthetic function only. Even the incredibly handy function of telling the time is one function too many.

And smartwatches? I don't get them. Don't you need your smartphone nearby, don't they work over bluetooth? So if your phone is in your pocket or somewhere nearby then aren't you paying an awful lot of money for a few seconds of convenience? If they work over wifi or cellular data that's another story of course.

Re: Moto 360 review

#43

Post by wastedhours »

blowski wrote: post #41
gambiting wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but then you are defeating the purpose of wearing a smartwatch, which I believe is to keep receiving notifications for calls, emails, messages and so on. If you only wake up the CPU every minute to check then it's far too slow to be useful.

Forgive me for being a bit out of touch. Is the idea of a smartwatch to be your main phone, small enough to strap to your wrist? I imagined that it was more like a really good watch - primarily there to tell the time, but allowing you to use it as a phone when that would otherwise be inconvenient. I played around with a prototype of an Android watch, and it just seemed too small to be useful. It seems like a remote c…

It is a remote control to your smartphone - the current Wear crop don't handle any of the phones' tasks, and it vibrates when I get a notification or phonecall...

Re: Moto 360 review

#44

Post by wastedhours »

uptown wrote: post #33

Is there a way to charge this thing without the dock, or are you expected to carry that around with you?

Carry the G Watch cradle in my rucksack. Get about 36-44 hours on a charge, so not enough to do a charge once every two days, but enough that you're probably going to get the hour or so near a socket to do it.

Edit: I don't use the voice features all the time (you do feel like a bit of a berk unless you're on your own), and I don't get hundreds of phonecalls and texts setting off the vibrate.

Re: Moto 360 review

#45

Post by paulojreis »

igravious wrote: post #42
paulojreis wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't watches (also) amazing pieces of jewellery?

I see what you're saying and I'm not trying to come across like some kind of luddite (I likes me tech I tells ya) but I only want the jewellery I have on me to have aesthetic function only. Even the incredibly handy function of telling the time is one function too many. And smartwatches? I don't get them. Don't you need your smartphone nearby, don't they work over bluetooth? So if your phone is in your pocket or some…

But you can pretty much ignore the time-telling functionality (I guess that's what most people do, anyway) and still retain the aesthetical value. Of course, watches might not be your thing, but it just sounded a little strange - do you value jewellery and its aesthetical value only until they have some sort of functionality?

P.S. I don't get smartwatches, too. At least, in their current incarnation(s).

Re: Moto 360 review

#46

Post by DCKing »

awjr wrote: post #5
sgarman wrote: post #2

Not even a day of battery life - that's such a deal breaker for me :(

Form over function? They made something that looks elegant without considering how people use watches. As the reviewer mentioned, you forget about it, it just becomes something you use adhoc during the day. Adhoc has to last 24+ hours. Could they not have made it thicker just to increase the battery size and make that a selling point? From a design point of view, you could then have made a chunky watch component that…

> Form over function? They made something that looks elegant without considering how people use watches.

But people use watches as a fashion item. Form is very important in a smartwatch - the previously released Wear devices were criticized for looking geeky and non-watchlike. Having a smartwatch look like a regular watch is a big deal, and the very reason why this one gets praised and the others received mixed responses.

Re: Moto 360 review

#47

Post by wastedhours »

ibrahima wrote: post #25
gambiting wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It won't be. You have to tap it to display the watch face. Edit: Nope, I am wrong - the screen does indeed stay on all the time, sorry.

I thought Android Wear devices had some sort of gesture detection so that the screen only turns on when you move it towards your face?

That's on top of the dimmed display. It runs in the dimmed power save mode, but when you "flick" the watch towards you (slightly exaggerated movement compared to a normal glance at a watch) it turns up and accepts voice commands (at least on the G).

Re: Moto 360 review

#48

Post by tillipa »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #32
tillipa wrote: post #4

I have a Pebble and I'm quite ready to upgrade to a 360. Google Now is the secret killer feature that reviewers don't take into account — probably because they've only had the device for a day and are in plugged into Apple services instead anyway. My two caveats are battery life and wrist straps. The early reviews suggest about 12 hrs battery life which is the bare minimum I'm willing to accept. I don't mind charging…

>> "Google Now is the secret killer feature that reviewers don't take into account" I love the promise of Google Now and it's the reason I switch to my Android phone every now and then to see how it's going. But it isn't as good as advertised. The only thing that it is very good with is sports (upcoming games, results, live scores). Everything else is hit or miss and when you're supposed to forget everything else and…

>> "I switch to my Android phone every now and then"

Do you use Google's services? If you don't, Google Now won't be as 'good as advertised' because it relies on that data which may not seem obvious at first (by the way, Windows Phone's Cortana is much better at requesting and displaying the background data it needs; Microsoft has leap frogged Google and Apple already).

I use Google Mail, Maps and, most importantly, Calendar. I've opted to share the information from those services with Google Now. I've found it's very reliable and useful.

Re: Moto 360 review

#49

Post by laichzeit0 »

I really hope Apple decides to call the iWatch something, anything really, that doesn't have the word "watch" in it. It's going to typecast it as something it's not, which is a time-telling device. That's really the most uninteresting and elementary functionality that these watches are going to provide. I really want to wear something that tracks heart rate, blood pressure, room temperature, sleeping habbits, etc. Telling time is the last on the list of shit I care that these things can do.
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